"I think you may, my good friend," replied I, thus engaged to speak, and in no way willing to spoil the controversy; "and this without losing any advantage by such an admission, seeing, that if the Gaelic were once so general, I don't think it a matter of credit or congratulation to its people that it is now extinguished, or only kept alive by the patriotic prejudices of a few clansmen in the Hielans and by the ignorance of my own countrymen in portions of Ireland."
"Ha!" cries Glasgow; "that's a hit, sir, and one that didna' occur to my mind! Now, M'Nab, how say ye to this? Why the deevil didna' ye keep yer ground that time ye had it all yer ain way, and no be lettin' strangers win it clean frae ye?"
"Ta' Gaelic was ta language o' Wallace and o' Bruce, and of Cyrus, who came before them," urged the Gael, hotly, "and who will say thae were easy to beat?"
"Who ever said that a Hielanman was easy to beat?" here cannily put in Glasgow: "not that I altogether allow Cyrus, or Wallace, or Bruce to ha' bin Hielanders; though I won't say that they didna' speak Gaelic: but fac's are ill to argue down, and the real fac' o' this matter is, M'Nab, that here Lowlander and Hielander are a' alike English, and it is not our duty alane, but our interest, to foregoe all thae hame prejudices, that have wrought us harm enough, and lang enough, without importing them here, to be left as an evil legacy to our children to keep them as strangers to ane anither."
"Look here, Mr. Dalgleish," demanded M'Nab, "do you admit your belief in election and free grace?"
At this I fairly bolted off the course; but in a few minutes after, whilst preparing to land at La Prairie, my old Glasgow-man sidled along by me, with an inquiry as to my pursuit and my name, in order, he added, that he might remember our pleasant argument, whispering in my ear as we separated,
"Hielanmen are aye weel enough in some particulars, sir; but they're just fairly eat up wi' pride and superstition, and fu' o' prejudices. At hame or abroad it's aye the like; they're of a race that can only be improved by amalgamation and time. I wish you a very pleasant passage hame, sir, and a good evening to you!"
Returning his civility, I was here separated from my elder. In about half an hour after I was about to quit the hotel, in the extra we had engaged for St. John's, when my Hielander, whose warm heart I had won by some honest commendation of his native country, ran up to me to shake hands, saying with a loud laugh,
"Ta old man was a good man, and a well-educated man; but a Glasgow is always a Glasgow; sell his web or his waens for ta money, and carein' as little for either kin or country as does ta cuckoo. God bless you, and if ever you should see Ben Nevis again, think on Duncan M'Nab that will see it no more."
Away ran the active Hielander, after his party, who were proceeding by the shore road, and in a few minutes my companions and myself were jolting at the rate of three miles and a half an hour over the ruts of La Prairie.